The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-12-24
JERRY'S SKUNK FARM.
AN ASTONISHING ESTABLISHMENT
UP IN THE NORTH WOODS.

AN ASTONISHING ESTABLISHMENT
UP IN THE NORTH WOODS.
just as 1t was Growing as Profitable
as it was Offensive Jerry Disap-
peared, and People Say that the
Skunks Ate Him.
From the Ne,c York sun
NoRTHwooD, HERKIMER COUNTY, n. Y. A.,
Dec. 10.-One of the stories which the
Northwood guides never tire of telling is
the history of old Jerry Titles skunk farm.
Jerry was an old bachelor who is supposed
to have come from Canada, though no one
knows very much about mis- life before he
settled in the town of Ohio, adjoining this.
In Ohio his home was log shanty of one
room, log barn and about 25 acres of land.
of pretty poor soil, the greater part of
which had been cleared and afteIward al
lowed to grow up to blackberry bushes.
The market value of the place was perhaps
$75. Jerry moved into the house early in
the month of March, good many years
ago, but attracted no attention to himself,
after the neighbors learned that he was a
bachelor for some time. He was seen at
work as the snow went away clearing off a
garden patch and then building stockade
enclosing about half an acre of ground adj
joining his barn. This stockade set the
neighbors gossiping. 1t was made of posts
from two to three inches thick, with their
adjoining sides hewed roughly but so as to
fit together with cracks between not ex-
ceeding half an inch in width. They were
set in a trench two and one-half feet deep
and stood over four feet out of the ground.
The neighbors supposed he was going into
the poultry business.
''Do you low that ere fence III keep
skunks out.' said Alfred Mckenzie, Jerry S
nearest neighbor, as he stopped to look at
the old man at work setting the posts in his
trench. 800.
''Itll keep 'em in Skunks amt no notion
of burryin' more'n two feet, an they won't
bury at all eff yen give 'em decent quar-
ters.n
That was all Greek to Mckenzie and to
this day he holds up his hands ard rolls his
eyes to show how astonished he was when
Jerry said it. But it all came out. Jerry
was going to establish what he called a
''skunkerie" and was thereafter set down
by his neighbors as a fit object to mention
when obstreperous children were to be
frightened into obedience. Mothers would
say: III you don't I'll give you to old Jerry
Little to feed to his skunks," just as mothers
tell their children to come in out of that
street before the cows eat youh
In spite of the well established belief that
Jerry was crazy, the neighbors were all Gu
rious to know how he was going to conduct
the skunk breeding business, and as he had
no fears of rivalry, he good-naturedly told
them all about it. He had found one family
of skunks comfortably domciled under his
barn when he arrived, it being common
thing for skunk , in spite of the persecution
which they receive nom the farmers, to
make themse yes very Extensively at home
rs near to human habitations as possible,
instances being not unknown where they
have buirowed under the kitchen floor of a
farm house and there remained until finally
killed by the disguised farmer. The pair
that lived under JerTy'S barn were not per-
secuted. They were fed every day.
When the stockade was completed Jerry
proceeded TO make comfortable nests for his
stock within it. These consisted of artificial
burrows made out of hollow logs, old soap
ground and covered over with about two
feet of earth, with holes at one side so that
the animals could get in and out The en-
tries were always arranged SO that even a
drenching rain could not wet the inside,
while each bufrow had acomfortable carpet
of old grass and leaves. The interiors were,
as a rule, constructed of simply one box cr
barrel, but in three or four places near the
barn were underground homes that, for ca
paciousness, were comparable to couble-deck
tenements in Mulberry street. three or four
boxes and barrels being connected together
by hollow-log passages.
"Skunks is the sociablest critters ye'ver
see," jerry used to say when telling his
neighbors how he had provided for the
comfort of his stock. ''You might have
dug 'em out by the dozen afore now, when
aIGer their pelts but of they only has a
chance they'll live in fiocks like squirrels a
trav'lin'."
With the yard completed, Jerry's next
care was to stock up.
There's couple over my way y en- hev
an welcome said Mckenzie when the
scheme had been explained to him, and
Jerry accepted the offer by carrying box
trap over to McKenZie's place and catching
two fine black ones. Mckenzie, in telling
about it, says that if he had supposed they
were pure black he would have caught them
himself: black skunk skins brought 75c a
piece down at Utica, and that was a sum
not to be found on the back OF every animal
roaming around a farm and well worth
bearing the trouble and stink for. How
ever, Jerry got the sklnks and caRrled
them home and turned them loose in his
skunkerie.
1t had by this time got well along in April
and the snow was disappearing rapidly, and
with the warm sunshiny days followed by
warm nights the entire skunk tribe of the
town came out from their burrows and
wandered up and down the fields and around
the swamps looking for food in the shape of
frogs and field mice, and not hesitating TO
follow an unfortunate rabbit into his bur-
row. Wherever they went they left unmis-
taxable evidences of their presence, and a
less wise trapper than Jerry would have had
no difficulty in determining where to set the
traps
There was nothing novel about the traps.
They were made of boards and were simply
oblong boxes a foot square on the end and
two feet long, with doors at each end that
shut down with a heavy bang when the
skunk stepped on little stick in the centre
of the box and released them. A live frog
ora BALI of a chipnrunk which Jerry caught
served as bait.
Before May Jerry had nearly twenty
skunks in his enclosure, the majority of them
being females Thereafter he caught moro
males than females, but he kept right on
trapping. BY the middle of May his stock
began TO multiply rapidly, each mother
skunk having family of from six to eight
babies The old man was now kept busy